WHEN WILL THE SEAL PROBLEM BE ADDRESSED?

I read an article about a fish harvester seeing a large herd of seals on May 31.

Jason Branton and his crew were 60 miles off Trinity Bay when they came across a herd of seals five-miles wide. His two-minute video did not show half the harp seals they steamed through for four to five miles. This is a time of year when capelin, cod, salmon and other fish are migrating to the inshore.

These seals were heading east to intercept the shoals of fish. Can you imagine how much fish 7.6 million harp seals can eat? Last year seals ate 3.2 million tons of cod. In 2008 seals ate 1.7 million tons of capelin. This is very common for harvesters who do a lot of offshore fishing to see seals like this.

This is what the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) response was “Previous studies have shown that predation by seals was not found to have a significant impact on northern cod stock levels” and “scientific evidence does not support that harp seal populations are impacting the abundance of capelin populations.”

It takes away all credibility of the DFO science department.

Bob Hardy, a fishing industry consultant, told Saltwire, “DFO seems fixated at using commercial fishing as the only mechanism to control individual stocks. The management and scientific body failing to recognize the impact of the largest group of marine predators.”

I agree with Bob Hardy. The only predator DFO has the guts to regulate is the N.L. commercial fish harvester and a person trying to get one to eat in my opinion. Fish harvesters in our province and country are losing billions. With all the evidence in pictures of seals’ stomachs full of capelin, herring, snow crab, how can DFO make a statement like that?

This year, N.L. fish harvesters are allowed to catch 14,533 tons of capelin for human food, seals on the other hand seals back in 2008 ate over 1.7 million tons of capelin and the seal herd has grown. This doesn’t count all the other predators that feed on capelin.

N.L. fish harvesters are allowed to catch 12,999 tons of cod for human food, harp seals, alone, eat over 3.2 million tons of cod.

Iceland’s seal count of grey seals in 2016 was around 4,200 and declining, Iceland’s harbour seal count 7,600 and declining.

The international council is recommending a total allowable catch (TAC) of codfish at 256,593 tons for 2021 and 45,389 tons of haddock for 2021 in Iceland. I have not seen haddock in our waters since the 1970s when the seal count was around 700,000.

The International Council for Exploration of the sea is recommending a TAC for Icelandic capelin at 400,000 metric tons for 2021-22. Our N.L. TAC for capelin is less than 17,000 metric tons.

This is proof that seals are damaging our fish stocks and it’s time DFO and our Canadian government did something.

Our fishing villages are a shadow of what they used to be — fish plants closed and many have been resettled to other places. Our fish resource, managed correctly, could pay for new roads and boil water orders could come off affected community water supplies. People could stay in this province and make a good living.

I love seals, I love cute little mice but do we let them get out of hand to a point that it affects the shortage of human food or causes an ecological disaster. If a seal looked like a crocodile would animal rights have the same love for this non-money maker?

When is DFO going to do the job they were mandated to do to protect fish stocks and not protect the destroyers because they are scared of animal rights? Fish harvesters take very small TACS from the capelin resource — this year the capelin TAC was cut by 25 per cent. It’s got to end or the inshore fin fishery is no more.

Neither DFO nor the Canadian government seem to want to touch the seal file. So we just keep moving in the same direction — getting robbed of our fishing culture and heritage year after year since the groundfish moratorium in 1992. We just gave away who we were as a great fishing nation.

John Gillett Twillingate